SA'S HUMANITARIANISM NOW NEEDS A DELIBERATE STRATEGY
Recently, the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ms. Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, announced that South Africa was to despatch humanitarian aid to the Republic of Niger in the Sahel region of north Africa. The aid comprised of four consignments by air of 1000 tonnes of maize boost and nutrition for children under five years of age.
This week and next, there will be other consignments of the same to be followed by several hundred tonnes of fertilizer and animal feed by the end of the year.
South Africa also undertakes work with Niger to develop some nine million doses of special PPR vaccines for livestock, thus enhancing Niger's capacity to develop its own vaccines.
The Sahel region is notorious for terrible droughts, floods and crop-destroying locusts. It is a thousand kilometer-wide eco-climatic zone of transition from the terribly dry Sahara desert and the Sudanian Savanah to the south. It spans over a three million square kilometers in land area, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. It comprises of various ecoregions with distinct flora and fauna.
It is home to some of the most advanced ancient civilisations including the Nubian and Egyptian civilisations that gave rise to western civilisation through contact with ancient Greece. Northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, middle Mali, southern Algeria, southern Niger, northern part of South Sudan and northern Eritea form part of this biogeographic zone.
The Sahel is prone to food crises and this has been the case for over centuries and populations. Generally low annual rainfall, occasionally long droughts, increasingly excessive heat, and desertification combine with weak governance and low-intensity conflict to cause frequent food insecurity in this region. The famine that results further erodes food security for years, precipitating new rounds of food crises year-on-year. The last crisis took place in June-August 2010 when average temperatures soared to high 40s and led to a long drought and crop failure. Thousands perished as a result.
In March this year, the African Union's Peace and Security Council declared food crises in Sahelian Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. South Africa pledged emergency food and humanitarian aid for all four countries. This comprised of 103 500 tonnes of food grain, millet, sorghum and nutritional provisions for children and pregnant mothers in Niger. There was also animal feed, fertilizer, bio pesticides and protection kits for workers applying pesticides. Mali received from South Africa 45 886 tonnes of millet and sorghum, dry seeds and potato seeds and nutritional supplements for children. Chad and Mauritius also received food crops, seeds and nutritional supplements.
The March assistance was meant to help the affected countries with seeds during the planting season between February and June, while the newly announced ones are a response to failure of food crops in the last season.
For a long time, the Sahel countries have relied solely on western donors and UN agencies for assistance. South Africa has over the past decade sought to change this by encouraging other actors to contribute to this "good" cause. It has projected itself as a caring African power, responding to crises in the Sahel, in Somalia, and in Mozambique. The African Renaissance Fund, which is about to be replaced by the SA Development Partnership Agency (SADPA), has been an effective vehicle for the humanitarian face of SA's foreign policy.
While humanitarian assistance is a good cause in and of itself, it is often part of a bigger scheme of things in foreign policy designed to enhance the influence of a country in international affairs. Similarly, it is an important component of what is called soft power on the part of South Africa, a major source of its prestige and moral position in Africa and in the world. It says South Africa understands that with immense regional capacity and global power ambitions comes responsibility to help the weaker countries cope with the vagaries of a changing world including climate change and globalisation.
However, to be optimally effective this good cause needs to form part of a broader soft power strategy that is thoroughly thought-through and discussed with civil society broadly. It should make room for forming partnerships with NGOs, UN agencies and major western and eastern donors, and for forming new forms of south-south cooperation to jointly prevent unnecessary death of children, mothers and livestock is prevented.
Such a platform could be called an African Development and Humanitarian Fund. It could also become a conduit through which the AU negotiates humanitarian partnership with international actors including BRICS, IBSA, ASEAN. MERCUSOR and the UN. South Africa should lead this move to gear up humanitarian partnership on a grand scale. South Africans must be encourage to contribute to such a fund.
This week and next, there will be other consignments of the same to be followed by several hundred tonnes of fertilizer and animal feed by the end of the year.
South Africa also undertakes work with Niger to develop some nine million doses of special PPR vaccines for livestock, thus enhancing Niger's capacity to develop its own vaccines.
The Sahel region is notorious for terrible droughts, floods and crop-destroying locusts. It is a thousand kilometer-wide eco-climatic zone of transition from the terribly dry Sahara desert and the Sudanian Savanah to the south. It spans over a three million square kilometers in land area, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. It comprises of various ecoregions with distinct flora and fauna.
It is home to some of the most advanced ancient civilisations including the Nubian and Egyptian civilisations that gave rise to western civilisation through contact with ancient Greece. Northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, middle Mali, southern Algeria, southern Niger, northern part of South Sudan and northern Eritea form part of this biogeographic zone.
The Sahel is prone to food crises and this has been the case for over centuries and populations. Generally low annual rainfall, occasionally long droughts, increasingly excessive heat, and desertification combine with weak governance and low-intensity conflict to cause frequent food insecurity in this region. The famine that results further erodes food security for years, precipitating new rounds of food crises year-on-year. The last crisis took place in June-August 2010 when average temperatures soared to high 40s and led to a long drought and crop failure. Thousands perished as a result.
In March this year, the African Union's Peace and Security Council declared food crises in Sahelian Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. South Africa pledged emergency food and humanitarian aid for all four countries. This comprised of 103 500 tonnes of food grain, millet, sorghum and nutritional provisions for children and pregnant mothers in Niger. There was also animal feed, fertilizer, bio pesticides and protection kits for workers applying pesticides. Mali received from South Africa 45 886 tonnes of millet and sorghum, dry seeds and potato seeds and nutritional supplements for children. Chad and Mauritius also received food crops, seeds and nutritional supplements.
The March assistance was meant to help the affected countries with seeds during the planting season between February and June, while the newly announced ones are a response to failure of food crops in the last season.
For a long time, the Sahel countries have relied solely on western donors and UN agencies for assistance. South Africa has over the past decade sought to change this by encouraging other actors to contribute to this "good" cause. It has projected itself as a caring African power, responding to crises in the Sahel, in Somalia, and in Mozambique. The African Renaissance Fund, which is about to be replaced by the SA Development Partnership Agency (SADPA), has been an effective vehicle for the humanitarian face of SA's foreign policy.
While humanitarian assistance is a good cause in and of itself, it is often part of a bigger scheme of things in foreign policy designed to enhance the influence of a country in international affairs. Similarly, it is an important component of what is called soft power on the part of South Africa, a major source of its prestige and moral position in Africa and in the world. It says South Africa understands that with immense regional capacity and global power ambitions comes responsibility to help the weaker countries cope with the vagaries of a changing world including climate change and globalisation.
However, to be optimally effective this good cause needs to form part of a broader soft power strategy that is thoroughly thought-through and discussed with civil society broadly. It should make room for forming partnerships with NGOs, UN agencies and major western and eastern donors, and for forming new forms of south-south cooperation to jointly prevent unnecessary death of children, mothers and livestock is prevented.
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